Tips to improve gut health after antibiotics

Need to take antibiotics, but worried about the side effects?

Read on for how to protect your gut health 😊

Antibiotic prescriptions often skyrocket in winter, due to more respiratory infections and illness. While they can be lifesaving, they also have risks - in particular in regards to their effect on gut health and the gut microbiome

Did you know, single course of antibiotics can wipe out entire species of bacteria in your gut, reducing diversity, and encouraging 'bad' bacteria to thrive?! While this definitely isn't a reason to not take antibiotics if you really need them, it also makes sense to do what you can to reduce their effect on your gut, given what we know about how important our gut microbiome is.

Often the only advice people are given when taking antibiotics, is to 'take a probiotic'. Yet there is actually very little evidence these help!

While there are a couple of strains shown to help your gut after antibiotics (see below), there are also many other ways you can help your gut cope and recover from antibiotics

Limiting foods known to harm gut health is a biggie - saturated fats, refined carbs, added sugar, highly processed foods, emulsifiers, and alcohol are all damaging to gut health.

Try avoid them as much as possible in general, but in particular during and after antibiotic treatment.

Instead, focus on including foods that feed your gut biome - in particular whole plant based foods high in fibre, as these are proven to promote the growth of healthy gut bugs.

Try to eat as many different whole plant foods as possible (ideally at least 40 different foods in a week)

Fibre is also your friend - this is the food our good gut bacteria need, so if you can, eat lots of high fibre foods, and consider adding a fibre supplement such as psyllium husk for a few weeks. Gut bugs love fibre!!

Fermented foods such as kefir, kombucha, kimchi, yoghurt, tempeh, miso etc can also be helpful, these have a far greater diversity of bacteria than probiotic supplements, and lots of ‘live’ cultures.

Getting adequate sleep (7-9h/night), reducing stress, and exercising regularly all help gut health too and boost our good gut bacteria. They also help improve our immunity to illness, so it's a double bonus!! 

There is some evidence that time restricted eating can improve gut health and help our good bacteria grow - to do this, eat dinner early (before 7pm), then consume only water or unsweetened herbal tea for at least 12-14h overnight

From a probiotic supplement perspective, the only probiotics with any evidence are saccharomyces boullardi (a yeast, dose of 5 billion CFU twice daily), and lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (6 billion CFU twice daily).

Taking these during antibiotics and for a week after has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of antibiotic related diarrhoea.

And last but not least - try not to take antibiotics unless absolutely needed!!

Viral infections do NOT need antibiotics, and even many bacterial infections such as ear infections or mild skin infections can be treated other ways.

Ask your Dr about whether this is a safe option, but make sure you follow medical advice to get the safest and most appropriate treatment for your needs.